This the best and only quality post on SEOmoz ever. Thank you Rebecca for saying what was already on my mind.
A while ago some of my SEO/SEM friends started asking for diggs. They started out IM conversations with the usual small talk and catching up. Then came the “can you digg this for me?”. Finally I told all these people: Look, I don’t care if you want me to use me to digg something. I can take it. I won’t even feel cheap afterwards. Just paste the digg URL to me, I’ll click on it and if it isn’t ridiculously lame I’ll digg it. Thats 2 clicks. If I have to make 5 minutes of small talk with you, its 5 minutes and an interruption in my work-flow (which is more critical than the 5 minutes, I’m not that bloody important).
Same goes for asking for favors or questions. Don’t hit me with the “are you there?” more often than not I am. But if I’m not, at least when I get back I can have your question on my screen and I can fire back an answer. If you just ask if I’m there, you probably won’t get an answer.
Now on to this Tuesdays and Thursdays are social days malarkey. Are you fucking kidding me? Are we that lonely in our home offices that we need virtual pep days?
Lastly, the new digg mutual-friend feature is so god damn annoying. Instead of dropping the email’s from digg with a procmail rule I am just de-friending all the people who I am mutual friends with. Sorry, but there is ABSOLUTELY no value to me in those emails.
Thanks Rebecca, for an awesome post as usual.
P.S. Don’t ask me for sphinns, I don’t even have an account.
I agree with you in that it’s almost worse to have the vapid small talk first, because you just know the dude’s only throwing it in there so he doesn’t seem like a selfish a-hole who’s only asking you for a vote…even though that’s exactly what he’s doing.
Yes, RK is right on about her post. Funny thing is the two of us were just chatting about the small talk thing. When I first thought about it I was sort of ticked off for the hit and run IM’s with no chitchat.
But the small talk just to get dugg drives me even more crazy. “Hey Shandy, how’s your grandma.. everything going ok?” “Hey man.. she passed away 2 decades ago”. “Oh sorry, hey can you digg this for me?”
There are a few friends who I don’t mind digging for as I know what they are up to. By digging on their behalf I know how I am helping them out. I really hate digging for people who I have no idea what their up to.
It’s not like I am even on digg when people IM me. So, I have to stop what I am doing, log into Digg and then hit their stuff up.
We’ve just become virtual employees for their social community.